Being a C-H-A-M-P depends on ABCs

by Chris Cozzone

Knowledge of the dozens of organizations that run boxing is as essential s knowing a left hook from a fish hook.

Forget your ABCs and you’ll find yourself believing every pug with a pretty, jeweled belt really is a bona fide world champion.

In the past couple weeks, New Mexico has seen the crowning of two new world champions.

Well, sort of.

On May 23, former two-time world champion Danny Romero added a third so-called world championship belt to his trophy case when he won a close decision over Trinidad Mendoza at Sandia Casino.

Last weekend, Albuquerque’s Adriana Delgado captured her first world title with an impressive decision over Canadian Kathy Williams at the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio, Colo.

While both fighters can, technically, call themselves world champions, only one will be recognized as such, at least by the majority of hardcore boxing fans and those who cover the sport.

The difference?

Romero picked up a super bantamweight belt endorsed by something called the International Boxing Association (IBA), a lightly regarded organization that jumped on the bandwagon in 1998 with its own line of belts, ratings and sanctioning fees. Coincidentally, neither Romero nor Mendoza had been rated by the IBA before their championship fight. (Nor could either fighter’s name be found in the top 10 lists of the four major sanctioning bodies.)

In other words, this really wasn’t a world championship fight.

Delgado’s title is a legitimate one. Both she and her opponent, Kathy Williams, were ranked by the three major ABCs of women’s boxing. In a fight for the International Female Boxing Association (IFBA) bantamweight title, Delgado (ranked No. 1 at 115 pounds) won a unanimous decision over Williams (ranked No. 3 at 118), earning the right to call herself a world champion.

A world champion—not the world champion, because that term, like “undisputed” is rarely heard these days.

Bob Foster was the last undisputed champion from New Mexico. When he cleaned out the light heavyweight division between 1969 and 1973, there were only two organizations, and he was champion for both.

Nowadays, there are at least a dozen titles out there, accounting for at least 204 world champions between the 17 weight classes ranging from strawweight to heavyweight. (And don’t even get me started on the numbers of regional belts under each organization’s umbrella.)

Bogged down by the sheer number, and confused by poster, promoters and TV plugs all advertising world championship title fights, we’ve all forgotten what the actual word champion means.

In my book, a champion is one who proves himself to be the best in his class—one who takes on, and defeats, all comers.

A champion proves his worth by whom he fights, not by what belt he wears.

In addition to his new trinket, Romero has won two legitimate titles: the International Boxing Federation’s (IBF) flyweight title in 1995 and the IBF super flyweight title, one year later—a title he lost to Johnny Tapia.

Tapia has earned five world titles spanning three weight divisions (unless you include the IBA featherweight title the organization gave him after he lost to Paulie Ayala in 2000—but even Tapia doesn’t count that belt), starting with the World Boxing Organization’s (WBO) super flyweight title in 1994 and ending with the IBF featherweight belt won in 2002.

That last world title belt was relinquished for a chance to fight the man considered the best featherweight champion, Marco Antonio Barrera. Although Barrera does not hold one of the major belts, he’s still rightfully regarded as the king of featherweights based on his victories over the top contenders in his weight division.

Chris Cozzone owns and operates the Web site NewMexicoBoxing.com and his work appears regularly on Fightnews.com and other boxing publications. His column appears Fridays in The Tribune.